


Into The Dark

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 21:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9143515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Leo Fitz's new apartment is amazing. It has hardwood floors, high ceilings, and a breakfast nook. It also comes with its very own ghost.Dr. Jemma Simmons, the previous occupant, died in a boating accident. The problem? She can't seem to leave her old apartment, and Fitz is the only one who can see or hear her.The bigger problem? He just might be falling in love with her.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amazingjemma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingjemma/gifts).



> Written as a New Years gift for amazingjemma (aka jemmamaximoff over on tumblr). I know this is one of your favorite tropes and you enjoyed the ficlet version of this, so I expanded it out for you :D I really hope you like it! Happy New Year! Here's hoping 2017 is full of light.

**[Move-In Day]**

 

Fitz dusts his hands off on his jeans, looking around all the boxes and empty space in his new apartment with a satisfied grin. It’s much nicer than his old place, with a breakfast nook and high ceilings and hardwood floors.

 

In fact, it’s the perfect apartment, and he takes a moment to soak it in now that Hunter and Mack have both left him in peace and quiet. Fitz gathers the empty beer bottles and pizza boxes, shoving them into his already overflowing garbage can.

 

He’ll deal with that tomorrow.

 

Then he feels something on his shoulder.

 

With a loud gasp, he spins around.

 

“Sorry!” the woman says, backing up rapidly. “So sorry. I just wanted to see if I could—“

 

“What. The. Hell,” he gasps out, because even though this woman is drop-dead gorgeous and has a pleasant smile and an adorable voice, she’s in his apartment, decidedly uninvited.

 

He wouldn’t even know _how_ to invite a woman like this into his apartment.

 

Besides, there’s something very off about her, and it’s off-putting. He just can’t figure out exactly what it is.

 

Then he notices. Her feet aren’t completely touching the ground. There’s something—glowy—about her.

 

“I’m Jemma,” she says, wringing her hands together. “Jemma Simmons.”

 

He gulps, hard, and stumbles back a step.

 

Dr. Jemma Simmons, the previous inhabitant of this apartment. The young, bright doctor.

 

The young, bright doctor who _died_ two months ago.

 

He had met her friends, an awkward run-in in the hallway when he came to look at the place. They were clearing out the last of her things. A girl with short black hair had been sitting in the hallway with her head in her hands, shoulders shaking, while a tall blonde rubbed her back, tears all over her face.

 

It had been simply heartbreaking. The landlord had to explain the entire spectacle to him, and Fitz had felt simply awful about the whole thing. But not quite awful enough to turn down this apartment at that amazing price.

 

“You’re dead,” he says, his voice low. “I’m going crazy. I’m losing my bloody mind.”

 

“No, no you aren’t!” Jemma rushes to say. “I’m—I don’t think I’m dead.”

 

“You are,” Fitz says insistently. “You _are_.”

 

Her face goes slack and then crumbles. She tucks her hair behind her ears and sniffles loudly.

 

“You’re the only person I’ve been able to—who’s been able to see me. I tried talking to Daisy and Bobbi, last time they were here, but—but it didn’t work.”

 

“Your landlord told me you were in a horrible accident.”

 

She furrows her brow, trying to puzzle it together. “I was. I think I was. But I don’t—are you _sure_ that I’m really dead?”

 

He smiles at her sadly, whatever she is. Maybe he can end whatever hallucination this is if he just—gets her to accept that she’s dead.

 

“Pretty damn sure. You were on a boating trip and something went wrong. No one survived.”

 

“That can’t be right!” she exclaims. Now she just looks frustrated, pacing around the living room. She passes right through the boxes and he feels his legs go numb.

 

This is _insane_.

 

“It is. It is right.”

 

“No, it can’t be, because I am an excellent swimmer. I’d never drown.”

 

He throws his hands up. “Jemma, I don’t know what to tell you.”

 

She freezes, turning slowly to face him. “Wow. It’s been a very long time since I heard my own name.”

 

His heart clenches. Even though this is all in his head, because it simply has to be, he can’t help but feel incredibly sorry for this poor woman.

 

“What’s your name?” she asks.

 

“Leo Fitz,” he says, because it can’t hurt to tell her. She peers at his belongings curiously and points eagerly at a stack of textbooks on the floor.

 

“You’re a physicist!” she exclaims. A wide, gleeful smile spreads over her face, lighting her up.

 

Well, lighting her up more than she already is, with her glowing features.

 

“Yes. And?”

 

“You can help me. I—if I’m really dead, something—maybe I’m trapped between---between some kind of realm. Maybe I’m in a quantum state or—“

 

“Jemma—“

 

“Please!” she practically shouts. Her eyes are desperate and scared and so lonely, and he can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like, if this is real. She glides over to him so quickly, he almost misses the movement completely. Her hand falls on his arm, icy cold but nearly solid, and he sucks in a sharp breath.

 

Maybe, just possibly, this _is_ real.

 

He looks into her big brown eyes and sighs heavily. He’ll do this for science, because if this is his chance to make a huge breakthrough in the realm of physics—then it’s a chance he can’t pass up.

 

It has nothing to do with the way she looks or sounds or even the way her creepy hand feels on his skin.

 

Nothing to do with that _at all._

 

**[Two Weeks After Move-In]**

Fitz shuffles around in his pajama bottoms, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He knows exactly where she’ll be, perched on his couch like she still lives in this apartment.

 

He used to sleep in a pair of boxers, but now that he has a ghostly female roommate, that’s not really an option anymore.

 

“Good morning, Leo!” she chirps happily.

 

Jemma tends to swing wildly between grief and happiness. He imagines it’s probably a tough adjustment, this whole being-dead thing. However, it is far too early in the morning for her nonsense.

 

“It’s Fitz,” he reminds her for the tenth time. “Please, just Fitz.”

 

She grimaces. “Right, sorry Fitz.”

 

He looks down at the counter and sees a steaming mug of tea already waiting for him, sitting alongside buttered toast. He looks up at her in surprise, and she looks very pleased with herself.

 

“Did you make this?”

 

“Mhm,” she hums, shifting to sit cross-legged on the couch. She’s always in the same outfit—a pair of jeans and a blue sweater with a crisp white button-down underneath.

 

He can’t totally imagine why she was wearing that at a boat party, but she’s a bit of an odd one.

 

“How did you—“

 

“I can still operate most things,” Jemma says with a roll of her eyes. “In fact, I can do a lot of things without even touching them.”

 

He furrows his brow. “You’re kidding.”

 

She shakes her head rapidly and raises one hand. The spoon in his tea begins stirring. Like magic.

 

He groans loudly, leaning his head back. “It’s too early for this.”

 

She laughs delightedly. “Sorry, Fitz.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, picking up the toast and taking a large bite.

 

“So,” Jemma says eagerly, shifting around in her nerves. “Any luck so far with my situation?”

 

He resists the urge to snap at her. She asks him every single day.

 

“Not yet. I told you, when I know something—“

 

“—you’ll tell me, I know. It’s just—I don’t have much else to think about.”

 

The usual pang of sympathy hits him square in the chest and he sighs. “You know you can watch TV and stuff while I’m gone, right?”

 

“I don’t want to run up your electric bill, Fitz.”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, waving her off. “Honestly, do whatever you wanna do while I’m gone.”

 

A little smile plays on her lips. “Really?”

 

“Yeah, of course. You must be bored out of your mind.”

 

“So, so bored,” she admits. “I’ve read that textbook you wrote twice.”

 

His eyebrows fly up. “Really? That’s pretty complicated stuff.”

 

“Don’t flatter yourself, Fitz, I’ve got a PhD and an MD. It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

 

He raises his mug in her direction. “Cheers, Simmons. You really know how to knock a guy down a peg.”

 

She crinkles her nose in that adorable way of hers and his heart speeds up just the slightest bit in his chest.

 

He absolutely _has_ to get over his weird crush on the ghost living in his apartment. At this point, it’s just ridiculous.

 

**[Two Months After Move-In]**

“Jemma!” Fitz shouts into his apartment when he gets home. He drops his bag at the door, eagerly shrugging his jacket off and tossing it onto the couch. “Jemma?”

 

He frowns, looking around the apartment. She’s not in any of her usual spots.

 

He makes his way to the bedroom, surprised to find her sitting on his bed. It sends his pulse into a frenzy, seeing her leaning back against his pillows like that.

  
And then his stomach clenches, because she’s crying openly, staring at the screen of his laptop.

 

“Jemma?” he asks softly.

 

“Oh, Fitz!” she gasps. She moves quickly out from under his comforter.

 

“Hey, hey,” he says, holding his hands out. “What’s going on?”

 

She shakes her head, hand on her mouth. “I’m so sorry, that was so inappropriate.”

 

He chances a look at the screen, recognizing the girls in the photo. It’s the blonde and the brunette who had been crying in the hall that day.

 

“Who are they?” he asks gently.

 

Jemma takes a few shallow breaths and then speaks. “That’s Daisy and Bobbi. They’ve been my best friends for—for a very long time.”

 

Fitz licks his lips and shoves his hands into his pockets, unsure what to do with himself. “You miss them.”

 

“So much,” she gasps out. “And they were here a few months ago, and I couldn’t _say_ anything to them.”

 

Fitz clears his throat. “I know. I uh, I saw them in the hall.”

 

“Neither of them have posted on Facebook very much,” she mumbles, swiping at her eyes. “I just want to know how they’re doing. I want to know if Bobbi’s job is going well, if Daisy is still trying to find her parents, if they’re both okay.”

 

Against his better judgment, Fitz moves closer to her and wraps his arms around her. Just like before, she feels cold and not quite…real. She feels corporeal, sure, but almost like she’s made of mist.

 

She curls into him, crying into his neck, and he runs his hand through her hair. It’s the only thing that ever changes about her—sometimes it’s down, sometimes it’s in a ponytail.

 

“Jemma—“

 

“I miss them. I miss my parents. I miss my life.”

 

“I know, I know—“

 

“I just want to go!” she shrieks, shoving him backward. She’s getting a little hysterical now, and he can’t really blame her. “I want to go! I don’t want to _be here_ anymore. It _hurts_.”

 

His eyes burn with his own tears but he blinks them back and strides back to her, pulling her into his chest.

 

“Hey now, c’mon. I’m getting closer. I’m getting closer. That’s what I wanted to tell you about when I came in. I opened a portal today. I don’t know where it goes, but—but it’s a portal. To somewhere.”

 

She gasps, looking up at him in wonder. “Really?”

 

“Really,” he says, even though it hurts in his bones to tell her. Because if it were up to him, he’d keep her ear, as his best friend and his companion, and maybe even more than that.

 

Because he’s a madman who’s fallen in love with the ghost in his apartment.

 

It’s clearly torturing her to stay. He can’t let her pain keep going, even if it’ll break his heart to send her—wherever it is she’s meant to go next.

 

He drops an impulsive kiss to her cool forehead and steps back.

 

“We’re gonna get this all sorted, Jemma. I’m gonna fix it.”

 

She beams at him and he closes the laptop. That’s enough for tonight.

 

“What if I could find a way to bring you back here?” he blurts out. It’s been on the tip of his tongue for weeks now, but he hasn’t had the guts to ask her.

 

She looks floored, utterly shocked by his question. “What?”

 

“What if I could find a way to—“

 

“To bring me back to life?” she asks. He can’t tell if she’s disgusted by the prospect or just flustered.

 

“Something like that.”

 

She runs her hands over her hair and shakes her head. “No. No, Fitz, you can’t. It’s impossible. And besides, think of the consequences it could have.”

 

“No one’s ever done it before. We don’t know if there would even be any consequences.”

 

“There would be,” Jemma says carefully. “There would have to be. There’s a natural order to things. You can’t just bring me back like some kind of Frankenstein monster.”

 

His jaw drops. “That’s not at all what I’m suggesting.”

 

“Well I don’t exactly have a body now, do I?” she challenges, gesturing at herself. “Fitz—you can’t. And I can’t let you do this to yourself. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to—trying to play God. It’s simply not possible.”

 

He pretends like he believes her. “Okay. Yeah, fine. It was a dumb idea anyway.”

 

He heads for the kitchen to open a beer. Jemma emerges from his room a bit later, one of his hoodies pulled over her shoulders. It looks odd, floating around her like that, but she’s been doing it lately.

 

He doesn’t ask why. He can’t bring himself to.

 

They spend most of the evening in relative silence. They don’t discuss Daisy or Bobbi or bringing Jemma back to life again, but it hangs between them like an unseen force.

 

**[Three Months After Move-In]**

“You look nice,” she says suddenly. 

 

Fitz jumps with a loud curse, nearly whacking his head on the medicine cabinet. In the mirror, Jemma smiles.

 

“Christ, Jemma, you scared me half to death.” 

 

She smiles a little bitterly and hops up onto the bathroom sink. “Welcome to my world. Although I suppose I’m fully dead, aren’t I?” 

 

His heart sinks. He hates that she has to go through this, and he really has been trying to figure out a way to let her move on, to wherever that may be, no matter how much it hurts him.

 

Selfishly, though, he’s been dragging his feet lately, the closer he gets to potential solutions. He doesn’t want her to leave, doesn’t want her to be gone forever. He certainly doesn’t want to just disintegrate her. So far, all of his tech seems to do just that. It won’t send her anywhere, it’ll just destroy her. That’s something he absolutely does not have the stomach for. Not when it’s Jemma.

 

What the hell kind of person falls in love with a ghost? Apparently, lonely quantum physicists. 

 

“D’you really think I look nice?” he asks, changing the subject away from the morbid. She nods, smiling once again. 

 

“You look very nice in that blue, I’ve always thought so.” 

 

He rolls his eyes and heads to the kitchen, Jemma floating along at his heels. “Let’s hope the investors think so.” 

 

“You’re brilliant, Fitz. You’ve nearly created a portal to an astral dimension!” 

 

He clicks on the kettle and leans against the countertop, watching her carefully. “Do you _really_ want to go…back?” 

 

She frowns. “Well, no. I can’t go back because I’ve never been there. There’s nothing you can do to bring me back to your world, Fitz.” 

 

“ _Our_ world,” he corrects a bit angrily. She raises her eyebrows. 

 

“I don’t belong to it anymore.” 

 

“What if I can find a way?” he asks a bit desperately. They’ve already had this conversation, he’ll know what she’ll say. But over the last month, they’ve only grown closer. He can’t imagine his life without her in it, and he really, really doesn’t want to.

 

She opens her mouth to speak and he continues. “I know you don’t think I can, but what if–” 

 

“There’s no telling what that could mean for the rest of the world, Fitz,” she tells him gently. “Besides, everyone who loves me–they all think I’m gone forever.” 

 

 

Fitz clears his throat and looks away. “Not everyone.” 

 

Jemma looks at him sadly, stepping forward to place a ghostly hand on his. He could swear that there are tears building in her eyes. “Oh, Fitz. Please don’t say that. Because then I’ll want to say it back, and I can’t condemn you to living your life with a person who isn’t real.” 

 

“You _are_ real. You’re the realest thing in the world to me,” he insists. “Just–let me try, okay? Give me some time. And if it really is impossible, then I’ll send you…forward.” 

 

She doesn’t look convinced that he actually can make her fully corporeal once again, but she nods anyway. “Alright, Fitz.” 

 

The kettle clicks, the water fully boiled, and Fitz moves to begin making his morning tea. Jemma shakes her head and flicks a hand. A mug flies out of the cabinet, a teabag floating up and opening itself. 

 

“You eat some breakfast. I’ll make your tea.” 

 

He leans forward and kisses her ice-cold cheek, She nearly drops the levitating kettle. 

 

**[Five Months After Move-In]**

 

He’s been driving himself crazy. Jemma paces around constantly, worried about him, shoving food in front of him and begging him to get some proper sleep.

 

There are calculations all over the walls, pieces of tech everywhere. He hasn’t seen Hunter or Mack in nearly six weeks, and it seems as though they’ve given up trying.

 

All Fitz cares about these days is bringing Jemma back to this world, his world. He obsesses over it, he can’t stop thinking about it, he throws himself so forcefully into it that he nearly forgets to go to work most days.

 

“Fitz, please,” Jemma practically begs one night, just past three in the morning. She grabs him around the shoulders and turns him away from his computer simulations, looking him square in the eyes.

 

There are bags under his, spider webs of red dashing through the whites of them. “Jemma, I’m so close.”

 

“Fitz, please,” Jemma says again. “Please. I—I hate to see you like this. I know that it’s getting closer now—“

 

“You told me I could have three months,” he reminds her gruffly. “It’s been two now.”

 

“I know,” she murmurs gently, running her fingers down one of his scruffy cheeks. She knows she should stop. She should pull away from him, be more distant, stop feeding into this thing that’s going on between them.

 

But she can’t help it. Whatever she’s capable of feeling—and she’s quite capable of feeling a lot, it would seem—is all directed at him these days. It’s almost enough to let him keep trying, to let him keep going even after the three months are up.

 

Only she loves him too much to let him do this to himself for the rest of his life, and she knows that he will.

 

He leans into her touch and shuts his eyes. With a soft smile, Jemma reaches down to haul him out of his seat.

 

“It’s time for bed, Fitz. You need sleep.”

 

“Jemma—“

 

“Come on.”

 

He stands and shuffles off beside her, falling onto his bed in a messy heap. He’s long since given up on decorum around her, and so she doesn’t feel too guilty about unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it off of him. She makes quick work of his pants even as her face heats up, one of the few physical sensations that still happens to her.

 

She helps him under the sheets and freezes when he catches her wrist.

 

“Stay with me,” he mumbles. He’s half-delirious, that much she’s certain of, but his blue eyes open slowly and stare right into her heart and there’s nothing she can do.

 

“Alright, Fitz.”

 

She slips into the blankets beside him, laying her head on the pillow beside him. She can’t help but notice that her body doesn’t even dent it.

 

She’s weightless. She’s nothing. And he deserves better. He deserves more.

 

If he won’t give up, then she will. She’s seen his plans for other devices, the ones that will essentially destroy whatever energy is keeping her here.

 

There are worse ways to go, she’s sure of it. At least now, she’s been in love. Even just this once.

 

She leans forward and presses a kiss to his cheek. His leg twitches with sleep, and she watches him for a long while.

 

**[Six Months After Move-In]**

 

He’s been preparing himself all day for his pitch.

 

Today is the day. The countdown on his time limit is over.

 

He’s gotten so close, but he’s just not there yet. He needs her to give him more time—a week, maybe two more weeks, and he’s sure he can get it. He can make matter out of nothing. He can bring her back.

 

He opens the door to his apartment with his heart in his throat only to find her standing in the middle of his living room, in front of the television.

 

“Jemma?”

 

She whirls around, her hair whipping all around her face.

 

“Fitz,” she breathes. “Fitz, they found me.”

 

He frowns. “What?”

 

She gestures wildly at the news playing on the screen. “I’m not dead.”

 

He steps further into the room, trying to focus on what the newscaster is saying.

 

“Twenty-eight year old Jemma Simmons, believed to be killed in the tragic Puget Sound boating accident which claimed the lives of thirty others, has been located. The young doctor was finally identified by hospital staff at Virginia Mason Medical Center, nearly eight months after her disappearance.”

 

“What the hell,” he breathes. “What. The. Hell.”

 

“I know,” Jemma beams. “I know. I’m not—I’m not dead, Fitz!”

 

She throws her arms around him, elated, and he lifts her up off the ground to spin her around.

 

“What does this—what does this mean?” Fitz asks desperately, but she’s too busy peppering his face with icy little kisses that leave a burning heat in their wake.

 

“I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.”

 

“What do we do?” he asks again, but then her lips are on his, needy and desperate, and her hands are clutching at the front of his shirt, and it’s just too much.

 

He doesn’t want answers, he just wants Jemma.

 

He finally has to pull away to breathe, although she doesn’t seem to have that same problem.

 

“We have to figure out how to put me back in my body,” she explains. “It’s going to be complicated—“

 

“But certainly less complicated than making you a new one,” Fitz jokes.

 

She laughs loudly, throwing her head back, and grabs his hands with a forceful little squeeze.

 

“Fitz. This is it. We can—this is—“

 

“Aren’t you glad you waited?” Fitz smiles, toying with the front of her hair.

 

“Yes,” she grins. “Yes, I really am.”

 

***

 

The next day, Fitz approaches Jemma’s hospital room. His hands shake and he shoves them into his pockets so that none of the hospital staff will notice.

 

The room is full of balloons and flowers and notes. All he can see are her feet—her real, actual feet—as he inches into the room.

 

Her friends, Bobbi and Daisy, are sitting on either side of her, and they both whip around to look at him.

 

“You’re the guy from the apartment,” the blonde, Bobbi, practically barks.

 

He swallows and scratches behind one ear. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead, but Jemma had begged him to go see her.

 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am.”

 

Daisy narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. “Wanna come take her hospital room too?”

 

“Daisy,” Bobbi chastises half-heartedly.

 

“No, sorry. I just—I heard, and I wanted to come see if—if there was anything I could do.”

 

Bobbi shakes her head, toying with Jemma’s limp hand. He finally settles his eyes on Jemma’s face. It’s completely slack and expressionless, completely unlike the way he’s used to seeing her. It’s a punch to the gut and he has to look away. Her hair is short now, shorn roughly at the shoulders.

 

“I don’t know why they cut her hair like that,” Daisy says bitterly. She reaches up to play with the ends, frowning. “It can’t have gotten that bad.”

 

“Jemma is in a coma,” Bobbi tells him gently. “They have no idea when she’s going to wake up.”

 

“She will,” Daisy says eagerly. “She will wake up. You don’t know Jemma, but—“

 

His breath catches. Of course he knows Jemma, maybe even more than they do, by now. But he can’t tell them that. How do you explain to two people that their best friend, who’s laying in front of them in a coma after being believed dead for nearly a year, has been haunting your apartment?

 

He can’t, and he knows it, so he lets Daisy continue.

 

“—Jemma is a fighter. This isn’t how my girl goes down. No way in hell.”

 

Bobbi smiles affectionately at her friend and then looks at Fitz curiously. “Hey, wait. You look really familiar, actually.”

 

“From the apartment,” he repeats.

 

“No, no. Do you know Lance Hunter?”

 

Fitz nods with a little wince. He’s been a shitty friend these last few months, another thing he won’t really be able to explain. “Uh, yeah. He’s one of my good friends.”

 

“You’re Fitz,” Bobbi says. “He’s been worried about you.”

 

“How do you know Hunter?”

 

Bobbi leans back with a little smirk. “We’re friends.”

 

“Bobbi is his girlfriend,” Daisy corrects with a roll of her eyes. “Not that she’ll ever admit that.”

 

The two of them begin bickering, and Fitz’s attention wanders back to Jemma’s face. It’s like something out of Snow White, so pale and serene and frozen in time.

 

He makes his excuses, leaves them his phone number, and makes his exit. As soon as he gets back to his apartment, he wraps this Jemma—his Jemma—in his arms.

 

**[Six Months, Twenty Four Days After Move-In]**

“This is crazy,” Fitz mumbles, pacing back and forth. “Jemma, this is crazy.”

 

“There’s no way to know unless we try it,” she reminds him. “Let’s go over the plan one more time. I get into this—capsule thing—“

 

“It’s a complex synthetic polymer that—“

 

Jemma holds up a hand. “No need for the explanation, Fitz. I get into this capsule, and then you shrink it down.”

 

Fitz nods along and picks up where she leaves off. “We go to the hospital, I let you out, you—lay down on yourself—“

 

“—and then you use the phasing gun.”

 

“And I shoot you and blast you with strong waves of radiation and—“

 

“—and many other complicated things I don’t fully understand, and then I’ll be alive again.”

 

“We hope,” Fitz reminds her. “It might—it might just make you disappear completely.”

 

Jemma nods resolutely and approaches the white honeycomb rectangle taking up a large portion of the living room. She goes to step into it, but pauses briefly to lean in for a quick kiss.

 

“Jemma, wait,” Fitz says as she goes to shut the door. “What if—what if you don’t remember any of this when you wake up?”

 

“You’ll just have to remind me,” she says with a smile.

 

The doors shut behind her and he taps in the code on the side, shrinking the module to the size of a shoebox. Given Jemma’s state of matter, it doesn’t seem to bother her at all. He carefully places it into his bag and slings it over his shoulder, heading off on their strange otherworldly mission.

 

It feels like it takes ages to get to the hospital. Visiting hours are nearly over, and it takes a minute to convince the security guard to even let him up. It eventually works, and he makes his way up to her room with no other problems.

 

Luckily, Bobbi and Daisy aren’t there anymore. They’ve both been posted up in this room ever since Jemma was located. He shuts the door behind him and takes the module out, restoring it to its normal size.

 

The doors slide open and Jemma steps out, transfixed by the sight of herself.

 

“Oh my God,” she whispers. “It’s—this is so strange.”

 

Fitz nods and places a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I know. Are you sure you want to do this?”

 

She nods wordlessly, squeezing his hand on her shoulder. Jemma takes a deep breath and steps forward nervously. She shuts her eyes and concentrates, phasing her hand through her comatose self’s body. The machine reading her heart rate spikes loudly, the beeping increasing in frequency. She gasps and steps back suddenly.

 

“What?” Fitz asks worriedly. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just—I could feel it.”

 

“You could feel what?”

 

“My heartbeat,” Jemma murmurs. “My—my heart started beating.”

 

She looks back at him with a smile, tears glistening in her eyes.

 

“This is it, Fitz. Let’s do this.”

 

“Alright. Okay.”

 

Jemma pushes forward to tug his face down for another kiss. It’s bittersweet, something like a goodbye. When they separate, her hands slip away from his and she steps back.

 

“I won’t forget you,” she promises. “I can’t thank you enough, Fitz. You’ve been right by my side the whole damn time.”

 

He smiles crookedly. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

 

She nods decisively and hovers over the bed, shutting her eyes and laying down. The Jemma that Fitz knows—the glowing, happy, animated ghost of a woman that he’s head over heels for—slips away completely, absorbed by her real body.

 

With trembling hands, Fitz bends down to lift his phasing gun. He aims it at Jemma’s chest, shuts his eyes, and shoots.

 

A bright light fills the room, and all of the electricity pulses briefly. His breath quickens to an erratic pace as the heart monitor speeds up even more. Her body jerks upward once, a grotesque curve forming in her back, and Fitz tosses the gun back into his bag just in time.

 

The door flies open, nurses rushing in as Fitz slides into the chair at her side. He hopes they can’t tell that he’s shaking all over and that he’s nearly crying, reaching desperately for her hand.

 

Her eyes fly open and she chokes on a gasp, the breathing apparatus in her throat clearly impeding her ability to breathe on her own.

 

“Oh my God,” the nurse shouts. “Get the doctor!”

 

The next fifteen minutes is a flurry of movement, Fitz shoved to the side as doctors and nurses get to work. There’s a brief argument about removing her breathing tube before the attending physician wins out. He slowly removes the tube, monitoring her very carefully.

 

“Dr. Simmons,” he says slowly. “Do you know where you are?”

 

His heart is in his throat as he waits for her answer.

 

She nods weakly, her scared brown eyes meeting his over a nurse’s shoulder. He can see it there, that she knows him. She recognizes him.

 

She remembers him.

 

When the flurry finally dies down, and they’re finally alone, he can’t help himself. He toes off his shoes and crawls into the hospital bed beside her. She wraps her warm fingers around his wrist, leading his hand to her chest, right over her heartbeat.

 

“Feel,” she rasps, her voice raw from disuse.

 

“You’re alive,” he laughs giddily. “You’re here. You’re alive.”

 

He leans down to kiss her forehead, stroking her cheek softly.

 

He fell in love with a ghost and now she’s alive. If that’s not a fairytale, he doesn’t know what is.


End file.
